


Never the Bond Girl

by punahukka



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Break Up, F/M, Friendship/Love, Workplace Relationship, ex-lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punahukka/pseuds/punahukka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a superhero's girlfriend was possibly the only thing she couldn't handle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never the Bond Girl

**Author's Note:**

> For the avengerkink prompt "Pepper/Coulson. Their respective competency kink led them to each other, but it also drove them mad when they settled into a relationship." Also "break-up" for avengers_tables: angst.

 

Descending to Tony’s lab, even if it’s the small one in the Avengers Tower, is always more of an adventure than Pepper really needs or wants in her life. JARVIS greets her at the door over the sound of some old school metal band she doesn’t recognise, and thankfully there are no explosions or anyone dying for now.  
  
The first time felt like entering a James Bond movie; in times like these it feels like living in a movie theatre and worrying about all the gum stuck in the benches under the glamour.  
  
”Tony, I need you to sign these.”  
  
“Tony.”  
  
“Tony, I need you to sign.”  
  
“Tony, I need you.”  
  
It’s usually the fifth line that gets through to him, knee-deep in metal scraps and over his head with wires and tubes propping out of the suit he’s working with.  
His suit. His baby, his personal saviour, his one true love.  
  
“Tony!”  
  
When his head finally snaps up there’s the weird yet somehow adorable way he blinks himself back to this reality. Although she’s grown to suspect he’s never really here with the rest of them. Not really.  
  
“Pepper. Hi.” She’s touched by the fact that Tony actually releases himself from his self-made trap of important and expensive looking stuff and approaches, wiping his hands, and there’s a trail of sweat dripping down his temple. “What news from the outside world? No, wait, don’t tell me. But tell Clint I’ve got the thing he asked for? The thing that goes swoosh. The arrow thing. Thing with the arrows. Like, swoosh.”  
  
“I’ll tell him. I need you to sign these.” She holds out the clipboard and Tony scribbles his autograph on required empty lines.  
“Just remind me, didn’t I hand the business over to you so that my name wouldn’t be so sought after?”  
“I’m still in the somewhat moral phase that prevents me from committing identity theft. But don’t worry, we’re getting there. Thank you, mister Stark.”  
  
Her smile falters to an untimely death, and of course it has to be the one time that Tony _notices_ and takes a good long moment to look at her. It’s been ages since the last time, and she’s the one to give up first and turn her head away.  
  
“Hey, what’s wrong?” He sounds genuinely concerned and she has to bite her tongue, because the last thing he wants is a panicking Stark running wild and causing havoc. “Peps, you know I absolutely suck at this, but, you know, I hate to see my favourite person sad. If that’s what you are. Sad, I mean. You know I always can’t tell.”  
  
It’s been seven months and a few days, and she wonders if she’s ever gonna stop counting. Seven months since she told Tony she couldn’t do this, _yes_ it was wonderful and _no_ it honestly wasn’t his fault, but being a superhero’s girlfriend was possibly the only thing she couldn’t handle.  
  
Before giving it a try it always felt like she was miss Moneypenny in a James Bond movie, never the Bond girl.  
  
After giving it a try she knew better than to look down on the established back-up.  
  
She’s not crying. Not here, not now, not in front of Tony, ‘cause for once it has nothing to do with him.  
  
“Oh my god, you’re crying.”  
  
Maybe she is. It’s a funny thing, once the first bastard of a tear goes falling there’s no stopping them.  
  
“Come here,” Tony mutters and pulls her to his chest, the clipboard clanging faintly to the arc reactor, and it’s on the side of awkward because it still feels too right and familiar, but it’s good for now. “Please don’t cry. I’m horrible with crying. What’s wrong?”  
  
Tony’s stroking her hair almost like he used to back then, and Pepper hopes she has enough dignity left not to wipe any snot on his shoulder. Not that the might-once-have-been-white t-shirt of his would mind.  
  
She takes a deep breath. “Phil and I broke up, that’s all.”  
  
Tony pulls back from their embrace enough to give her a puzzled look. “Who the hell is Phil?”  
She takes a deep, deep, deep breath. “Phil Coulson? Agent Coulson? SHIELD?”  
Tony looks blank. Pepper doesn’t know if she wants to laugh or punch him in the face. Which pretty much summarizes her feelings for him all along the way.  
“You dated Coulson?”  
“I did. For a while. It didn’t work out.” She gives Tony one more squeeze before pulling back, wipes her eyes and quickly evens her ponytail.  
  
“What’s wrong with that man anyway? Should I order an assassination?” Tony huffs and puffs after getting over the first shock.  
“That won’t be necessary.”  
“Spit in his coffee at least?”  
“You know he used to spit in yours when _we_ broke up?”  
“It’s _so on_. But hey, what happened?”  
  
She finds her smile again, no matter how wavering on the edges it might be. For all her adult life she’d been living in the false belief that breakfast in bed would make her feel special: with Phil it had turned out that it made her feel useless. If she got to the coffeemaker first, his day was ruined. When eating out, they always had two table reservations; when spotting the first signs of a threat to their superheroes, the other was already on top of the situation.  
  
“He didn’t need me.”  
“Need you? Oh, you mean, the he could tie his own shoes thing and all that jazz?” Tony frowns at her, his socially challenged mind undoubtedly trying to put the pieces together. “So you left me because I needed you too much and you left Coulson because he didn’t need you enough?”  
“It really makes me sound bad when you put it that way.”  
“Bad is such a strong word. Wait, it’s not. Anyway. Not bad. Picky, maybe. Very, very precise.”  
  
She blows her nose when Tony manages to dig up a tissue.   
  
“I’m sorry. I really should be going.” She waves the clipboard.  
“It’s fine. I guess.” Tony cups her face with his hands and presses a quick kiss on her forehead. “I’m sorry. In a disturbingly triumphant and jealous way, and honestly, I didn’t even know it’s possible to feel this many things at once. But I’m sorry.”  
“Thanks, boss.”  
  
The next kiss lands on her lips, gentle and firm, and she has to admit she doesn’t pull away too soon. But she does pull away.  
  
“Would that be all, mister Bond?”  
“That would be all, miss Moneypenny.”  
  
Sometimes it still feels like a Bond movie, and the thing about Bond movies is that when it comes to love life, every significant character will always be a bridesmaid, never a bride. And no matter how bad it hurts to look Phil in the eyes in the next meeting, and no matter how hard she will scold herself for letting the Tony thing get to her again, she already knows that as long as she works with superheroes and secret agents her hopes of a steady and healthy relationship are doomed.  
  
And miss Moneypenny loves her job.


End file.
